One cigarette triples your risk of lung cancer

Smokers who believe a few cigarettes a day don't do any harm will need to think again.

New research has revealed that smoking just one cigarette a day triples the risk of heart disease and lung cancer.

Norwegian scientists found a significant difference in the risks of lung cancer to smokers compared to non-smokers.

Men who were light smokers were about three times more likely to die of lung cancer than non-smokers. In women the risk rose to five times higher.

The researchers studied the health and death records of 43,000 men and women.

They tracked the smoking habits of the men and women, who had been screened for heart disease at the start of the study, from the 1970s to 2002.

"In both sexes, smoking one to four cigarettes per day was associated with a significantly higher risk of dying from ischaemic heart disease and from all causes, and from lung cancer in women," said Dr Aage Tverdal.

Smoking dangers well documented

The dangers of smoking are well documented. Previous research has shown that smokers die on average 10 years earlier than non-smokers but stopping, even in middle age, can halve the risk.

It is also a risk factor for heart disease and stroke and raises the odds of developing age-related macular degeneration which is the leading cause of blindness in the elderly.

Tverdal and his colleague Dr Kjell Bjartveit, of the National Health Screening Service in Oslo said health officials must emphasise more strongly that light smokers are also endangering their health.